| Friday, September 12, 2025 ⋅ 11:30AM – 1:00PM |
We hope you’ll join us on Friday, September 12th at The City Club of Cleveland’s upcoming forum “Before the Movement: The Hidden History of Black Civil Rights.”
What if the conventional narrative of the 1960s civil rights era, by its very nature, limits the success, legal achievements, and persistence of Black Americans for generations? In Before the Movement: The Hidden History of Black Civil Rights, author Dylan C. Penningroth maintains that the fight for civil rights didn’t begin with famous marches and courtroom cases of the 1960s. Instead, his research stretches from the last decades of slavery to the 1970s, and challenges nearly every aspect of our traditional understanding of civil rights history as we know it.
Drawing on long-forgotten sources found in the basements of county courthouses across the nation, Penningroth centers the everyday lives of Black Americans and sheds light on their centuries-long tradition of legal knowledge to assert their rights, protect their families, and shape their communities.
To learn more about the event or purchase tickets, please visit the link below!
